It wouldn’t be an AMA session without an IMAP question :) I’m excited to announce that starting right now we DO support IMAP, and we wanted you folks to be the first to know. Go check it out.

IMAP

o Incoming IMAP mail server: imap-mail.outlook.com

o Incoming IMAP mail server port: 993

o Encryption: SSL

SMTP

o Outgoing SMTP mail server: smtp-mail.outlook.com

o Outgoing SMTP mail server port: 587

o Encryption: TLS

We’re also supporting OAuth so that all sorts of 3rd party apps and services can easily and safely integrate with Outlook.com. We’ll have a blog post up soon with more details, including a description of some partners who are launching support today: TripIt, Sift, Slice, motley*bunch, Unroll.me, OtherInbox, and Context.IO.

While we believe that EAS is the most robust protocol for connecting to your email, with syncing in near real time, and superior battery and network efficiency, there are still some devices and apps that haven’t made the upgrade to EAS. As an older protocol, IMAP is widely supported on feature phones and other email clients such as those on a Mac. We heard your feedback loud and clear that this was important.

In addition to offering more complete device connectivity, IMAP (along with OAuth) gives developers opportunities to build third-party clients and services that offer value-added scenarios on top of your Outlook.com email. We are excited to launch the first set of services today that integrate with Outlook.com, and look forward to sharing many more in the future.

New and unique scenarios that build on your Outlook.com inbox

TripIt, Sift, Slice, motley*bunch, Unroll.me, OtherInbox, and Context.IO have taken advantage of Outlook.com’s new IMAP capability and are rolling out updates today that allow their apps and services to integrate with your Outlook.com email. We’ll have many more to share in the near future. If you’re building an app that wants to integrate with Outlook.com, we’ve provided more details at the end of this post on how to get started.

Check out the blog post for more, and those details on the technical aspects of IMAP support for Outlook.com